1857, of slave parentage. Like many another of our able and successful men his early educational advantages were extremely limited. When he reached the age of twenty years he could do scarcely more than read and write. Even this scant knowledge was gained under great difficulties. His days were usually spent in arduous labor on the farm. At night, when not too worn-out from physical toil, he would pore over his books by a torch-light fire. When the weather did not admit of work on the farm he was allowed the privilege of attending the common school, if the one in his neighborhood chanced to be in session. Probably the whole time spent in school in this manner did not aggregate eight months in as many years.
After leaving the farm he was employed as a laborer on the telegraph lines in the South. He still tried to pursue his studies, though now without any assistance whatever, even learning a little of English grammar by carrying a page or two in his pocket and committing it at odd moments. It was while on a telegraph inspecting tour that, in company with some fellow-workmen, he visited the Richmond Institute, at Richmond, Virginia, one of the Baptist ELome Mission Society schools. He was at once impressed with the desirability of "going to college," mostly on account of the name and prestige it would give him among his youthful companions in the old home neighborhood. Inflated with a "little learning," he had no true conception either of what he knew or of what he lacked of knowing. Despite his scanty schooling he was already acknowledged the brightest
